Pride and Prejudice

In reading Pride and Prejudice I learned how different it was in the early nineteenth century compared to how it is now in our society. Everything was different from the clothes they wore, the language they spoke, and marriage was valued more back then. Pride and Prejudice is a well-known novel of Jane Austen and continues to be really popular because of the quality of her work. She continues to live on through her literature after so many years of being deceased. Also, in Pride and Prejudice it shows us their values in a patriarchal society, the importance of marriage and security, individualism against society, and the impact of manners and expectations.

The narrative voice in the story is that of a third person. The narrator does not belong to the story and refers to characters in the story by name or third person pronouns: 'he', 'she' and 'they'. The narrator is also able to see into the thoughts of the characters in the novel.

Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice has been recognized as 'having an effect of naturalness which is achieved by means of superb artistic organization, which exploits to the full the potential of novelistic prose and form'. (Morris 32) One of the ways she achieves this is through the use of irony.

The narrator in the story makes use of irony to convey a mood of comedy as evident in the example “He bore with philosophy the conviction that Elizabeth must become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude and falsehood has before been unknown to her”. The idea of someone asserting their ingratitude and falsehood to others voluntarily and forcefully is indeed satirical and funny, to say the least. Skillfully fusing two opposing viewpoints in a single sentence is indeed a hallmark of Austen's writing style.

Another example of irony that is used is structural irony. Structural irony reflects the underlying moral scheme of work. In the extract, Elizabeth knows about Lydia's character very well but she still chooses to help her from time to time. She even convinces Darcy to offer some help to Wickham, even though Elizabeth knew that the couple were living beyond their means. As the heroine, Elizabeth was intelligent and witty but at the same time weak and helpless when it came to discerning family members.

The narrator also uses the two main forms of narration - 'showing and telling'. In telling, the narrator actually tells us how the character feels and thinks. This method is a quick and indirect way of informing readers about a character. For example, we are told that Lydia and Wickham 'were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought.' The choice of words suggests that they were both living beyond their means and that they were both materialistic people.

In showing, a method which has been described as more effective in involving the reader imaginatively with characters and producing an active response of sympathy ...